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Sir VS Naipaul, Nobel Prize-Winning Novelist, Dies at Age 85

V S Naipaul. Photo: Hindustan Times/2012 Hindustan Times

The British author, who won a Nobel Prize for his work that explored colonialism, has died at age 85. V S Naipaul passed away peacefully at his home in London, according to his wife Lady Naipaul. She said in a statement, “He was a giant in all that he achieved and he died surrounded by those he loved having lived a life which was full of wonderful creativity and endeavour.”

Naipaul was born in Trinidad in 1932, and won a scholarship to attend Oxford, where he studied English. He released his first novel, The Mystic Masseur, in 1951. Ten years later he would release what is considered his masterpiece, A House for Mr Biswas. When he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the committee noted that his books “compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories.”

Sir VS Naipaul, Nobel Prize-Winning Novelist, Dies at Age 85